Let’s do the Time Warp again: Tonight, Smyth revives the Rainbow Room of 1980s NYC.
The craft-cocktail revival is in full swing, with its attention to classic recipes, seasonal ingredients and fresh-squeezed juices. If there’s one man you could credit for relaunching the mixology movement, it’s Dale DeGroff, who presided over New York City’s Rainbow Room starting in the late 1980s.
Tonight, Dallas’ Smyth will honor “King Cocktail” — now author, consultant and founder of New Orleans’ Museum of the American Cocktail — by recreating one of his original Rainbow Room menus for the evening. From the Derby cocktail to the Orange Breeze, you’ll have a chance to be transported back in time, and if Smyth’s Ryan Sumner has his way, 1980s tunes will be on the playlist will help you get there. Let’s hope that doesn’t mean any Huey Lewis and the News.
Don’t forget to make — and keep — your reservations.
SMYTH, 4513 Travis Street, Dallas. 214-520-0900
Craft-cocktail drinkers: You owe this man. The great Dale DeGroff, throwing down at Tales of the Cocktail 2012.
This apple-walnut Old Fashioned earned 2nd-place honors.
“We’re kind of scrunched for space, but I’m doing the best I can,” Ryan Sumner said as he kicked off the Clyde May’s Whiskey Old-Fashioned competition at The People’s Last Stand with a version featuring apple bitters, demerara syrup and the French bitter Suze.
Consider this post Old-Fashionably late: It’s been a couple of weeks since 16 bartenders vied for the top prize of $500, each with up to six minutes to make and present their drink for the judges. Clyde May’s was the vehicle here, an apple-ish, bordering-on-caustic whiskey with some colorful moonshine roots, and each contestant spun a different version of the cocktail stalwart while adhering to its traditional mix of whiskey, sweetener, bitters and water.
Chase Streitz of Sissy’s Southern Kitchen, serving up his twist on the classic cocktail.
Cinnamon, vanilla, peach and, of course, apple were popular flavors. One of my favorite versions came from Greg Matthews of Oak Cliff’s Ten Bells Tavern, who froze Mudsmith Coffee’s steeped coffee into cubes and punctuated his whiskey concoction with a vanilla sugar made with Mexican vanilla beans, hazelnut bitters and a vanilla/hazelnut garnish.
The vanilla-accented version from Ten Bells’ Greg Matthews featured coffee ice cubes.
La Duni’s Daniel Guillen shone, too, gussying up his Old Fashioned with sherry, Campari and a roasted red pepper and pecan jam. And Smyth’s Charlie Tips Ferrin, like his compatriot Sumner, served his summery green apple/walnut drink in little mason jars – “in the spirit of the moonshine that it came from,” he said.
Ryan Fussell of Ruth’s Chris Steak House prepares his drink’s fig garnish.
Brad Bowden of The People’s Last Stand infused his whiskey with smoked peaches, while Ryan Fussell of Ruth’s Chris Steak House strived to use ingredients that would have been available in the 1800s, when the classic cocktail was born. He topped it with a warm fig garnish. (“Figs are badass,” pronounced photographer Mary Szefcyk, clearly impressed with the choice.)
Brad Bowden of The People’s Last Stand infused whiskey with smoked peaches for his entry.
In the end it was Smyth’s Omar YeeFoon who walked away with top honors, flavoring his version with Plantation 5-year-old rum, Angostura and tiki bitters, cane syrup and a light dash of orange oils. With Ferrin placing second and Sumner taking third, it was a Smyth sweep, which if nothing else proved the speakeasy boys could come through in scrunch time.
Smyth’s Omar YeeFoon with the double-stir on his way to the evening’s top honors.
And if you’d like to see Smyth’s Ryan Sumner explain the method behind his Old Fashioned twist, here’s a link to my YouTube video:
Abacus’ Blackberry Smash is among the acclaimed restaurant’s new bar offerings.
AND JUST LIKE THAT, sweet things are already happening behind the bar at Abacus, the five-star fancypants restaurant that has long wowed critics with its Pacific Rim cuisine. The recent addition of bartender-slash-apothecary Lucky Campbell to its staff of able libationists was a sign that the Knox-Henderson landmark was ready to boost its bar program too.
Hint one that change is afoot: The barrel flanking one end of the swanky bar’s bottle stash. Mid-afternoon last Friday, that barrel was filled with Old Fashioneds and presumably destined to age, but by 10 p.m. Campbell was already positing that the bar had sold more Old Fashioneds in one night than in the past two months. By weekend’s end, he said, the barrel was nearly empty.
This is Abacus, people. Wine, Martinis and Champagne cocktails are the rule, right?
But witness the new, Asian-flavored menu (priced from $12-$14), set to roll out today: A deliciously gorgeous Blackberry Smash made with Maker’s Mark bourbon. A Brandy Stinger featuring Tempus Fugit’s top-notch crème de menthe. And preparing to float lava-lamp-style in the extremely dry, Champagne-driven Femme Fatale: pearls of effing Violette.
That’s right: little spheres of lavender-y Creme de Violette, one of Campbell’s lab projects. A jasmine-tea cordial and five-spice tincture are already bubbling in a back room, and even the Martini menu has been primped, with one knockout version offering Islay-Scotch-and-cracked-pepper blue cheese olives, stuffed in-house.
Said bartender Jordan Gantenbein: “I’ve been waiting three years to do this.”
The sensibilities that guide Abacus’ renowned kitchen are seeping into the dimly lit bar. So it wasn’t surprising to find Chef de Cuisine Daniel Burr himself on a stool late one night, helping the black-clad bar samurai as they brainstormed an Asian-themed Margarita variation and suggesting matcha green tea powder as a component.
There are some real curiosities on the new menu, like the clever Banksy with “spray-paint spices,” a Yuzu Collins with Bing Cherry soda and the “Ninja Rita,” with its foam of Togarashi, a Japanese spice powder.
Abacus is having some fun now. This is a place worth keeping an eye on.
Abacus’ grapefruity Rio Star is one of the standouts on its redone cocktail menu.
Booze news and adventures in cocktailing, based In Dallas, Texas, USA. By Marc Ramirez, your humble scribe and boulevardier. All content and photos mine unless otherwise indicated. http://typewriterninja.com
